


Forgemasters

by Antherios_Bane, Blimbgis_the_Turgled



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cybernetics, Gen, Science Fiction, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25370794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antherios_Bane/pseuds/Antherios_Bane, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blimbgis_the_Turgled/pseuds/Blimbgis_the_Turgled
Summary: On a frozen earth centuries in the future, the human race is dying a slow, whimpering death.Though one brilliant enthusiastic orphan who scrounges up artifacts from humanity's Golden Age may be the key to saving this icy world.
Kudos: 1





	1. The Global Tundra

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work I've kept in the dark ever since 2010, when I was in my sophomore year of high school, it has not seen the light of day until now

_Planet: Earth_

_Environment: global arctic weather_

_Average Temperature: -28.8° Celsius daytime, -40° Celsius nighttime_

_Year: 3081 A.D._

_Global Population: ..._

_…_

_…_

_…_

_3000_

* * *

Endless whiteout, endless cold and strange dark shapes litter the surface of the planet Earth, the once great cradle of the human race. Most of the remaining population live in Shell-cities, massive domed fortresses that keep out the cold.

  
  


Rumors have it that the world was once warm and people could venture outside without protective gear, and did not have to fear the deadly mutant creatures that now roam the icy surface of the planet.

Our story begins in a Shell-city called Clypeus. There lives a young girl, tinkering with old Golden Age technology, who may be the key to saving this world from freezing to death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter to test the waters


	2. Chapter 2

How humanity had survived this long, nobody knew. The Empire of Snow had long forbade any investigation into the matter, believing it to be pointless and trivial study. After all, they were still alive and provided for, what more could they want?

  
  


Though if rumors were believed true, following the collapse of the Golden Age, the fabled Forgemasters arrived to save the world upon hearing the pleas of humanity. This is all that the world knows of that point of time, and nobody knows what became of humanity's saviors, if they were even real to begin with.

Clypeus was no different then any other Shell-city across earth's Tundras, it held a steady population of 500 humans, and was powered by what survived of the great Forgemasters' technologies. 

Six stood across the frozen wastes, Clypeus, Hephaestus, Oceana, Idaho, Holly, and Imperius.

Clypeus trained soldiers, Hephaestus manufactured general goods, Oceana produced water from the thick ice layer, Idaho produced food, Holly supplied entertainment products and media broadcasts, and Imperius stood as the seat of the Empire of Snow’s power.

  
  


Far from the city, an orphan, Dri Clovis, tinkers with ancient artifacts from the Golden Age. She does this as a hobby, and to satisfy her ever curious mind. All her life has flowed against the status quo. Nobody ever wonders how humanity fell so far, they're too focused on the now, and complains that she's obsessed with ghosts.

Here she was in an old facility long abandoned, likely decades ago, its purpose long forgotten, finding prime scrap to sell. She just about finished grabbing parts, but had to duck away to hide from the roaming Rat-bears, massive mutated rodents that fed on anything fleshy that moved. 

Dri suddenly heard a creaking sound and she plummeted downward as the rusted floor gave way. She had stumbled into an abandoned shaft in the ice layer as she screamed and fell down, and down and down. She fumbled for her booster toggle as she feared when her fall would abruptly end. 

The boosters on her pack fired their blue pulses to break the speed of her descent, but she still landed hard on something metallic...and hollow. She withdrew a cutting laser and made a hole large enough to fit through, and began her search for junk and/or artifacts. She was in a pristine room that looked incredibly advanced, with smooth walls made of some dark steel and blue accent lighting.

In the center of the room were a series of pedestals with what looked like rectangular blocks made of slate, it radiated an energy she couldn’t decipher, but it felt familiar to her somehow. She picked one up with a pair of adjustable pliers and put it in a bag, intending to sell it later alongside the other scrap she found.

* * *

  
  
  


After using her grapple to return to the surface, she started up her Gravbike and sped off across the snowy landscape. Her goggles allowed her to see through the whiteout, she could make out the silhouette of Clypeus against the stark white of the land. 

She didn’t go to any of the vehicle bays, she had gotten into enough trouble for meddling in the relics of the past to risk getting caught now. So she used a long forgotten tunnel under the shell-city, a tunnel that only she knew about. Despite the guards upholding their fiduciary duty to patrol the exterior of the shell-city, this tunnel had eluded their watch for years...perhaps because of the signal dampener she had installed under the Archivist's tutelage. 

She zipped into the tunnel and directed her Gravbike through the labyrinthine corridors with practiced precision. Eventually she reached her destination, a place dubbed the Archivist's Seclude, where her mentor resided.

Dri dismounted and threw her bag of finds over her shoulder, but held the mysterious slate box under her arm. 

* * *

Dri was a Psyker, someone with the ability to perform supernatural feats by unknown means. Her Psyker power gave her the ability to manipulate all kinds of technologies with her mind, and the Archivist had taken her in under his tutelage to help hone her power.

The Archivist was a mysterious figure who “looked to the past to determine the future”, as he put it. Dri had never seen his face before, it was always obscured by a darkened void and his hood, only his cyan eyes ever showed.

“ _ Ah, you have returned! _ ” he said in his signature gravelly voice as paused his study of ancient relics.

His computer screens were filled with seemingly endless streams of data that Dri could never hope to decipher.

Dri brought her haul to the table and set the bag down, and the strange box down next to it.


End file.
